Greybody factors, reflectionless scattering modes, and echoes of ultracompact horizonless objects

Abstract

Motivated by a recently discovered connection between the greybody factors of black holes and the ringdown signal, we investigate the greybody factors of ultracompact horizonless objects, also elucidating their connection to echoes. The greybody factor of ultracompact objects features both low-frequency resonances and high-frequency, quasi-reflectionless scattering modes, which become purely reflectionless in the presence of symmetric cavity potentials, as it might be the case for a wormhole. We show that it is these high-frequency (quasi-)reflectionless scattering modes, rather than low-frequency resonances, to be directly responsible for the echoes in the time-domain response of ultracompact objects or of black holes surrounded by matter fields localized at large distances.